Courts ready for grand final use

A GRAND Final Super Saturday will be staged on Wangaratta's new $12.9 million basketball courts with council approving a Place of Public Entertainment (POPE) permit for another one-off event. It will allow 17 grand finals to be played using three new courts from 12.30pm this Saturday, with contenders to be finalised after Wangaratta Basketball Association (WBA) wraps up its semi-finals on Wednesday night. It's been a long road for the hundreds of local recreational basketballers, with the new courts being off-limits since August 29 when a POPE permit was also secured for the South Melbourne Phoenix vs Brisbane Bullets match, attracting around 1000 people. However, a hold-up with an occupancy permit over matters concerning fire safety regulations for the courts has meant the basketball community and other users have been fenced off from any action. WBA president Adam Maher met with Rural City of Wangaratta CEO Brendan McGrath to discuss the options of holding all the grand finals on the new courts and they came to an agreement. "It's going to be for one day only and there will be 14 junior and three senior games and it is really exciting," Mr Maher said. "There will be hundreds of people there with up to 400 per timeslot with players, spectators and the crossover of people arriving for subsequent games. "We've decided to up the three new courts so everyone will be able to play on a new court. "We haven't had a grand final on a Saturday for a long time and growing up they were on this day and there was quite a lot of energy, it was a day out and people tend to watch basketball on weekends. "There will be some challenges with some other sports on as well but we have done some research in how it will pan out and we're pretty confident it's going to be okay." Several members have expressed their frustration with the delays in the opening of the new courts but Mr Maher said there is some positivity coming through now. "Hopefully this will take us into Christmas and we can hit the ground running in the new year with the new courts ready to use," he said. Council director of sustainability and culture Stephen Swart said council continues to work with fire engineers the finalise the occupancy permit for the basketball court development and "hope to complete this process soon".

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